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Thursday, 4 December 2014

Cooper Bartholomew Is Dead

Cooper Bartholomew Is Deadby Rebecca James (Allen &Unwin)

YA PB RRP$19.99

ISBN 9781743319239

Reviewed by Yvonne Mes

Cooper Bartholomew is dead. His girlfriend is devastated
and not convinced it was suicide. Cooper was much loved, popular and an
all-round nice guy. His friends adored him. So why is he dead? From the
developing romance between Libby and Cooper and the relationships with their
respective friends and parents the story builds to an unexpected ending.

The story is told from multiple perspectives and takes you
backwards and forwards in time. Rebecca James pulls this off to great effect
and flips between first and third person point of views for her main and minor
characters respectively. This complex way of story telling works amazingly well
and adds to the suspense and enjoyment of the story.

Her characters are wonderful, multi-faceted and feel like
real people. Between all the mystery of how and why Cooper died, the characters
struggle with finding their way as young adults after finishing high school.
They discover how the groups that define them in high school change as they
grow and they struggle with the choices to make for their futures.

There were quite a few references to sex without it being
overwhelming and there was a lot of casual drugs use which made for an edgy
read.

Referred to as the new J.K. Rowling in the Wall Street Journal after a bidding frenzy
for her novel Beautiful Malice in
2009, Rebecca followed this up with Sweet
Damage, another successful, edgy young adult novel. Both novels are now on
top of my to-read list.

Yvonne Mes is a children's writer
and illustrator. Her first picture book, Meet
Sidney Nolan (Random House) is scheduled
for release in October 2015. www.yvonnemes.com